Saturday, November 10, 2018

A Couple of Things

Vikki is a humor writer I admire, and her blog is really good. So, it's not as if I'm thinking: it'd be so easy to write something like Vikki every week. No, it's just that when I read her stuff I realize blogging has a lot of value, at least to me. I love reading about other people's lives, and I like going back through the archives here and reading about my own life.

Wouldn't it be nice to chronicle a little longer? Just keep track of the mundane?

In any case, here are a couple of things:

We've been working on volume this week in third grade. As in, noise level. Previously, we've worked on stamina and coping skills. Those things are still high on our list of priorities, but this week I felt like a lot of people were yelling all the time. We've now worked on self-awareness around yelling. I come around and gently remind people about our goals. I say, "It sounds like you're yelling." We've achieved sporadic and marginal success in lessening the frequency of yelling.

Mac has me obsessed with this podcast called Six Minutes. It's a story about a girl mysteriously lost at sea and the family who takes her in. Also, it's about helicopters and bad guys and hoverboards. It's transformed our commute. Each episode is--shocker--six minutes long. If I can't listen to my new Spotify playlist that includes "St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion)" and has my family engaged in a whole new round of mom-mocking, then I choose Six Minutes.

The kids and I are headed to Sioux Falls, South Dakota today for the Nike Heartland Regional race. It's a cross country fantasia with many 5k events spread over Sunday. Tonight, we'll eat tepid pasta in a Sioux Falls convention center ballroom where we'll hear from an elite athlete about running. I invited Dan to this getaway. I said, "You could come with us to Sioux Falls and watch hours of cross country races in which you'll know no one, OR you could stay home and enjoy some alone time." I think you know which way he went, even after hearing about the pool at the Sioux Falls airport hotel I've chosen.